


Of Heart and Head

by katekane



Category: Charité (TV 2017)
Genre: 19th Century LGBT Activism, 19th Century Medicin, Bechdel Test Pass, F/F, Femslash, Fix-It, Friends to Lovers, Misses Clause Challenge, Queer History, Yuletide 2018, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-25 18:52:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17126837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katekane/pseuds/katekane
Summary: Five times Ida Lenze chose her head over her heart - and one time she didn't have to choose.Ida Lenze becomes one of Berlin’s first female doctors.Therese goes to one of the world's first tuberculosis sanatoriums and lives to experience a time full of new ideas, especially regarding gender and sexuality.





	1. Prologue: Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elektra121](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elektra121/gifts).



> I saw your Charité prompt and wanted to write you an extra Yuletide story as a treat - basically because what you requested is something I have been wanting to write for ages anyway. 
> 
> I did see Charité in its original language, but with Danish subtitles, and German is my third language and quite rusty, so I did not dare to attempt writing this fic in anything other than English. There are a few German quotes in there, however :)
> 
> The title is from a song by K.D. Lang.

”Oh Therese, you should have been there! Stine fell asleep with her head in the soup!”

Ida’s laughter sounds foreign to her own ears as it echoes against the filthy stone walls of the Charité. Maybe it’s the late hour. Maybe it’s the fact that Ida is more sad than amused. Or maybe it’s because Therese is unable to laugh with her.

Therese is not even awake. Her breathing is ragged, her forehead covered in sweat in spite of the chill in the room. Charité might welcome the poor, but the conditions for patients and staff alike are grim. And Therese is _both_ : A nurse with consumption. Her Mother Superior wanted to send her to the Mother House 500 kilometres away. Ida, a secular nurse herself, had to fight just to get Therese a sick bed. Even Ida’s stubbornness could not, however, secure the tuberculin that is being tested at their very hospital. The experimental treatment is reserved for _interesting patients_ , which to male professors does not include a poor woman with no family other than the sisterhood. The fact that said woman fell ill while working selflessly for the same male professors matters little.

There is neither sense nor justice in the way women are treated, Ida thinks to herself. What she says is: ”You have to get better, Therese, you can’t…” She leaves the sentence open-ended, like an outstretched searching hand. How _could_ she finish the sentence when this… _thing_ between Therese and her is so clearly unfinished. Undefined, even. While Ida frowns, her thumb automatically caresses Therese’s limp hands, neatly folded across her chest as in prayer; even on the brink of death Therese manages to appear contained (Therese always seems to somehow hold back). Except for her hair: long, golden, unruly curls spill around Therese as if taking advantage of their freedom from the usual pins and headscarf. Even on the brink of death Therese is beautiful.

Therese is one in three people Ida has kissed in rather rapid succession.

Behring, twice her age, had been demanding in is kiss if not in his words. She felt overwhelmed by his strong smell and prickly moustache as he pushed his lips against hers, pushed her entire body backwards. Behring has offered to support Ida financially through medical school, but she is sure there are strings attached.

Tischendorf, only a few years older than Ida, seemed surprised by her kiss. She was honestly a little surprised herself. After all, less than twenty-four hours had passed since she found him utterly ridiculous. He has proposed to her in a back alley, dead drunk and sporting a fresh cut from a fencing match. Apparently he wanted to show her he could be knightly. Ida would have preferred it if he had done his duty at the hospital so she wouldn’t have had to help deliver a dead baby in severed pieces.

Therese kissed Ida, but only after Ida had hugged her closely. She had just shared her dreams of becoming a doctor, and Therese had listened without judgement. The moment had felt intimate, and Ida suddenly wanted to hold the other woman. Therese had been momentarily stunned before returning the gesture. Then, there had been no space between them; their cheeks had touched (soft skin against soft skin) and Therese’s lips had been upon hers. Therese had fled moments later, clearly afraid she had done something horrible, but looking back Ida thinks she herself was at least partially responsible for initiating the kiss.

She fails to grasp the full implications of any of the kisses. She knows Behring and Tischendorf want more from her. She thinks Therese merely wants her to be happy. When Therese offered to pay for Ida’s ticket to Zürich she clearly expected nothing in return. “ _What do you want_?” Therese, feverish and pale and short of breath, had asked what neither of the men had. “What about _your_ dream? Do you want to give up medical school? If not, then you can’t marry. You need money to study in Switzerland. You can have my savings. I won’t need the money.”  
“I don’t want it, I want you to get better,” had been Ida’s response.

If Ida could choose between Therese’s survival and her own dream of becoming a doctor, the decision would be easy, but it is out of her hands. However, she wonders if Therese – unconscious and fighting for her life – is right in her other assessment: That Ida _will_ have to choose between marrying and following her academic dreams; between her heart and her head.


	2. One: Morning 1888

Behring is marrying someone even younger than Ida, a child basically, but the child of someone wealthy and powerful who can further his career. Ida is pretty sure the offer of supporting her studies no longer stands. She will have to support herself, at least for the most part.

“I am going to accept your generosity and spend your savings on tickets to Switzerland,” she tells Therese, “but you are coming with me.”

In the end, the fact that Therese was not offered tuberculin turned out to be a blessing. The drug has not cured a single patient, but sped up their demises considerably. Therese, on the other hand, has a little more colour in her cheeks now, Ida notices as she draws the curtains aside to let the morning sun in. Resting rather than working herself to the bone from 4:30 to 22 has clearly helped Therese. But she will need more than rest if she is to make it, Ida knows. Left untreated, tuberculosis kills two in three patients.

For now, Therese is once again fever-free and able to protest: “My calling is here, I can’t go to Zürich!”

“You’re not. I am dropping you off in Davos. It’s a mountain village approximately 150 kilometres east of Zürich. A German doctor, Alexander Spengler, has a treatment facility there for tuberculosis patients. I have researched it as best I can, and his results are remarkable.”

By now Therese is fully awake. “This disease is _my_ concern,” she says with finality, and Ida smiles while rolling her eyes. As irritating as Therese’s stubbornness is, it is also a sign that she is much stronger than she was a few days ago.

“I’m making it mine,” Ida says with equal finality as she helps Therese get dressed.

“You don’t _understand_ ,” Therese objects even as she allows Ida to slip a shirt over her head. “My feelings for you… I prayed, but they didn’t go away. And so I fell ill. It’s God’s way of punishing me.”

“God did not make you ill, bacteria did, more specifically Mycobacterium tuberculosis,” Ida says evenly. “You know very well professor Koch discovered the true cause of tuberculosis six years ago.”

Ida puts more faith in science than prayer, but she is not an atheist. She does, however, find it hard to believe that a loving God would condemn Therese for, well… anything, really. Therese is without a doubt the kindest person Ida has ever met. She has risked her place at Charité several times to help Ida get proper care, get a chance to escape, or simply to help her clean the stairwells. And aside from that one kiss Therese has gone out of her way to not burden Ida with whatever she is feeling. Even when Ida wishes she wouldn’t.

“That does not rule out God’s intervention,” Therese insists. She is tying her hair back, and Ida has to bite her tongue to stop herself from begging Therese not to cover it up. “God could have put the bacteria in me.”

“Well, you’re the sister, not me. But from what I have gathered from sporadic visits to church, the core of Protestantism is that only God will absolve you, not specific deeds or feelings or the absence of feelings. And God grants salvation to everybody as long as you believe. Isn’t that what you sing every morning? _Du erquickst, begnadigst alle, schenkest Gnad und Ruh auch mir,_ ” Ida melodically quotes back at Therese, who on her part seems to be running out of words. She opens her mouth, but closes it again and merely frowns in what appears to be utter confusion.

“Don’t worry, Therese, you’ll get plenty of time to ponder your worthiness or lack thereof later on. Because you are going to live for years and years,” Ida concludes, and that’s that.

She has already gathered her own things, and Therese has precious little to pack. Ida has made her own choice: Head over heart. She is going to forget Behring and study without his help. What Therese will choose in her life is impossible to say, but at least, by going to Davos, there is a chance she will get to make choices.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I initially thought incorporating sanatoriums would require a degree of historical freedom, but I did some research, and heureka! Davos got its first TB treatment facility in 1860! Robert Louis Stevenson went there :)


	3. Two: Noon 1890

The food at the sanatorium is better than anything Ida ever had before, and she is certain the same goes for Therese. Whereas Ida’s poverty came later in life, after the death of her father, Therese grew up in an orphanage.

Ida has travelled from Zürich to have tea with her friend, whose transformation is almost unbelievable: Therese is smiling widely, her hair is down, and her face completely covered in freckles from being out in the fresh mountain air. The freckles make it seem as if not just her eyes, but her entire face is twinkling.

Ida was a little startled when Therese greeted her with a warm hug. The last time they saw each other Therese seemed wary of touching Ida, afraid of overstepping, but that hesitation is gone. She had gained weight, too; the form pressing against Ida was fuller, softer, and quite hard to let go of.

Now they are sitting across from each other on an alpine terrace, Therese’s eyes closed against the sunlight. She looks at peace with herself in a way Ida has never seen before, which should be surprising considering Therese has had to give up her sisterhood. Though not her faith, it seems.

“I’ve had a lot of time to _ponder my_ _worthiness_ , as you termed it,” Therese says with a half smile. “I believed God was trying to tell me something by making me ill. Unless I want to be a hypocrite, I have to similarly believe he is telling me something by making me better. Don’t you agree?”

“Absolutely,” Ida says. She grasps one of Therese’s arms on the small table, strokes her wrist.

Therese really is better. Physically, she is able to work in the kitchen and gardens of the sanatorium so she can pay for her stay. But Therese is better in less tangible ways, too. There are scars on her wrists – Ida had noticed them at Charité, but never dared mentioning them. Back then some of them were an angry red. By now they have paled to thin white lines criss-crossing tan skin. Every single one is old. Ida marvels for a moment at the paradox of them: The scars simultaneously point to Therese’s vulnerability and to an incredible ability to overcome it. Ida is startled out of her thoughts by a question, and when she looks up from her fingertips (against Therese’s skin) she blushes at the realisation that her friend might have been watching her for a while. If she has, she doesn’t comment on it. All she wants to know is: “How is life as a medical student?”

And Ida is more than happy to fill Therese in on everything. From brilliant professors to horrible housing to nights spent pouring over books and knowledge, knowledge, knowledge. Ida’s voice carries into the mountain air, and Therese laughs along when something is funny, asks for elaborations when required, and _listens_ as no one else ever truly has.

Ida’s visit is nearing its end when she notices the drawing of herself pinned above Therese’s bed. She threw it away, a little unsettled by the fact that Tischendorf drew her while she was unconscious from appendicitis.

Therese catches her staring at it and seems to panic a little. “I picked it out of the trash bin. I can take it down, if you feel it’s-“

“No, no, it’s fine,” Ida decides. She puts a hand on Therese’s shoulder to emphasise her point.

Therese’s posture relaxes. “I’m glad. It’s just… You saved my life, Ida, and I think of you so often. As my closest _friend_ ,” she hastily adds. Back at Charité, particular friendships were deemed inappropriate for sisters, because they were supposed to care equally for everybody. At this point, Therese is no longer fighting or hiding the fact that she cares especially for Ida, but she does apparently find it necessary to assure Ida that her feelings do not venture past the boundaries of friendship.

Whatever that means for women, Ida wonders. Close relationships are not uncommon between females; women share intimate thoughts, they hold hands, and even kiss on occasion. Ida is not quite sure what else women _can_ do. Therese mentioned sinful thoughts back at Charité, but not even the law condemns relationships between women.

“In Zürich, some women who prefer careers to marriage choose to live with one another,” Ida says, “it’s very practical.”

“Right,” Therese agrees, but she averts her eyes in a way that makes Ida think Therese does not truly agree.

Ida wonders at that. Surely the practical advantages are obvious? She remembers Tischendorf’s proposal and how naïve she had been in thinking she could marry him _and_ study at the same time. He had encouraged her ambitions exactly until their engagement was to become official. Then, from one moment to the next, he had stopped seeing her as anything more than a trophy wife: “Surely you aren’t seriously considering medical school? I took your idea to be a woman’s flighty fancy. You have to know your place in society, like my father says.”

According to all the Tischendorfs making up that society Ida cannot be married while having a career of her own. It’s one or the other. And like the professional women cohabiting in Zürich, Ida is choosing her head over her heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Proper nutrition, plenty of rest and a high altitude climate were considered the best treatment for tuberculosis in 1890. Around 15 years would pass before someone discovered that it was not actually the mountain air, but the exposure to sunlight that did the trick. Heliotherapy, is the term. Oh, and Ida is referring to the so-called "Boston Marriages" of her era, but I'm pretty sure that term was not used in German speaking countries.


	4. Three: Afternoon 1895

Ida, by now a doctor in title if not yet of much experience, senses something is up as soon as she enters their shared flat on the outskirts of Zürich. Therese looks so solemn as she receives her in their tiny kitchen, a steaming mug of tea in each hand. “We have to talk,” she says. Then she drops the bomb: “I’m moving back to Berlin.”

Ida tries to listen as Therese explains her reasoning, but the words melt together.

Ida thought things were going well; Therese never questions Ida’s love of medicine, and they both help pay the bills and tend to the everyday tasks of cooking and cleaning. In addition, Ida enjoys Therese’s companionship. They are intellectual equals, and Therese can easily follow when Ida shares details from her workday. Therese herself works as a secular nurse these days, but has taken an interest in other matters as well. Books are piled high on her bedside table, and Ida can relate to Therese’s enthusiasm, even if she doesn’t quite understand why Therese is specifically engrossed in works such as ‘Eros. Die Männerliebe der Griechen’ written by some Swiss cloth merchant in 1836 or ‘Das Mutterrecht’ by some German liberal in 1861. Where Ida is intrigued by _germ theory_ and the new promising invention by Röntgen, Therese is more taken with _uranism_ and Sappho.

Ida never considered it a problem that the two of them had different passions. Their lives fit well together; it is so very practical for them to cohabit. Convenient, really. Ida never even considers the possibility of marriage anymore. And she thought Therese, too, was satisfied with things the way they are.

Apparently, she isn’t.

“Berlin is changing,” Therese says. “I hear there’s a police commissioner there who has given up on prosecuting people like me.”

Ida doesn’t understand what Therese means by _people like me_ , except it’s not _people like us_. Therese is making a distinction, which Ida doesn’t quite follow. Surely, they are similar in everything that matters: Both are women, neither the marrying kind, both pursue their interests. And they _like_ each other, Ida thinks as a sense of dread fills her. Their life together might be practical, but deep down Ida knows it isn’t the convenience she will miss. She will miss _Therese_ ; her ability to listen without judging, her liveliness and the way she gestures with soft freckled hands, her warmth. Ida will miss knowing Therese is waiting for her after a late shift. Will miss making her laugh. Will miss accidentally falling asleep next to her when they have been reading into the night and waking up with Therese’s hand in hers or her own hand buried in Therese’s curls.

“I have to follow my heart.” Therese sounds sure, but Ida thinks she sees a hint of sadness in her eyes.

She also thinks her own heart is about to break a little.

But Ida has to work off her student debts. She has to gain experience. She has to become better, smarter, more. So she stays in Switzerland, even though it means staying here alone. She chooses her head over her heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a lot of fun researching LGBT titles from 19th century German speaking parts of the world. There were surprisingly many! And a Berlin police commissioner really did decide to lay off the gay community around 1895.


	5. Plus One: Evening 1898

Berlin has changed so much since Ida left the city ten years ago. This time, Ida intends to stay. She still needs to find proper lodging, but has secured a position as an actual medical doctor at the Charité. Unfortunately without pay, which means she has to take private patients on the side; there is still a long way to go before female doctors receive equal recognition in Germany. But at least things are slowly improving. Also, Charité is not the only thing that is pulling at Ida.

Over the past three years, increasing doubt has been gnawing at Ida, making her question her priorities. She used to truly believe that staying behind in Zürich was the right thing to do, but she misses Therese _so much_. If she could make the choice again, Ida thinks she might, for the first time in her life, forego her head.    

She has stayed in touch with Therese, of course; they have maintained a regular correspondence, so she knows her friend is thriving. Therese works for a controversial Jewish doctor now, Magnus Hirschfeld, who moved his practice to Charlottenburg two years ago. In her last letter, Therese had enclosed a pamphlet penned by the doctor, but published under a pseudonym: ‘ _Sappho und Sokrates_ ’. Ida remembered Therese talking animatedly about Sappho when she still lived in Zürich. It would appear she has found a kindred spirit, Ida thinks with a smile as she tries to navigate the Berlin streets in search of the establishment where Therese occasionally bartends. The entrance is hidden away in a backyard, and Ida finds this counterintuitive exactly until she crosses the threshold: Men are dancing cheek to cheek in here, which is technically forbidden even if the local law enforcement turns a blind eye. It takes Ida a minute to realise that quite a few of the men are actually _women_. Dressed in slacks and bowties and suspenders and with their hair cut short. One of them turns and waves eagerly and Ida’s jaw drops when she recognises Therese: She is wearing charcoal dress-pants and a crisp white shirt. A tie hangs loosely around her neck, and a bowler hat hides her hairdo.

“I get off in fifteen minutes, then I’ll be right with you.” Therese offers Ida an awkward half-hug from across the counter and pushes a drink into a hand. Some customer is impatiently demanding Therese’s attention, but she ignores him (or her?) for half a second and holds Ida’s gaze while she quietly says: “It is so good to see you, Ida.” Perhaps because the music and chatter is loud, Ida feels rather than hears the statement; it washes over her like a breath and leaves her skin tingling. She downs her drink and turns her attention to the couples on the dance floor.

From a small stage a male singer clad in an impressive dress sings Josephine Lang lieds in a higher voice than most females could. _“Wie glänzt so hell dein Auge, so rein, so schön, so hehr! Es ist ein klarer Himmel, es ist ein tiefes Meer!”_ One couple in particular seems enthralled by the song. They are clearly both women, even if only one of them is wearing women’s clothing, and they are miming to the lyrics while never taking their eyes off each other. _“Ach wär' ich doch die Perle in diesem tiefen Meer!”_  Their lips turn the familiar poem into an intimate declaration shared by just the two of them. Ida feels as if she is intruding, yet cannot look away as the more masculine looking of the pair traces her fingers through the other woman’s hair (long and golden and curly, Ida’s own fingers twitch from muscle memory), then across her bottom lip.

Ida feels foolish, but also warm all over when everything Therese has been trying to tell her finally falls into place: This is not in the least about convenience; this is _erotic_.

“I suppose all this might appear a bit decadent.”

Therese seems to materialise out of nowhere next to Ida, who literally jumps in surprise. Apparently she has been lost in thought.

“Because our world has to stay mostly hidden, many in here lead double lives. Berufsmensch by day, Geschlechtsmensch by night,” Therese explains, then she quickly adds: “But most homosexuals are highly respectable people.”

Ida looks at Therese properly. Up close her face is exactly as she remembers it. Soft freckles are sprinkled across every slope, her cheekbones, her Cupid’s bow; and her eyes are still the kindest Ida has ever seen. “I never thought of you as anything but respectable,” she says with a smile, which Therese returns. Ida has a flashback bridging ten years. She remembers being much younger, unformed and full of wild dreams that she shared with Therese before anyone else. She remembers standing as close to her as she does now and being overwhelmed by a need to hold her, to feel their inexplicable connection physically. She remembers their one shared kiss. Back then, she had no idea what it meant, if it meant anything at all, but now – with the weight of their common history, with every choice Ida has made and learned from – she would never again be able to kiss Therese and move on from it.

 _“Tage der Wonne, kommt ihr so bald? Schenkt mir die Sonne Hügel und Wald?”_ the soloist has moved onto another Lang lied, this one about the changes brought about by spring, and Ida laughs at the symbolism.

“What’s so funny?” The corners of Therese’s eyes crinkle with shared mirth even if she couldn’t possibly be in on the joke; they seem to somehow be in sync regardless.

Ida simply shakes her head and holds out her hand, palm facing upwards; an offer. “Will you dance with me?”

Therese takes it, and soon they look just like any other couple on the dance floor. The lack of difference is telling, Ida thinks. She loves Therese; she has done so for years. But here, among other women loving women, the potential of that love increases tenfold. If she ever again gets the opportunity to choose Therese, then Ida will do so in the hopes of not merely sharing her bills, but also her life, her being, her bed… even if she isn’t sure what it entails exactly. She only knows that she wants. Her heart wants.

“If I had followed my heart rather than my head, I would have gone with you three years ago,” she says close to Therese’s year. They are more or less the same height, so when Therese turns her head towards Ida their faces are few centimetres apart.

“Does it have to be either-or?” Therese wonders aloud. “Can’t you listen to both?”

Ida bumps her forehead against Therese’s; it’s meant as a teasing gesture, akin to a poke, but she enjoys the feeling of skin on skin and doesn’t pull back again. “You were the one telling me I couldn’t marry if I wanted to study!”

Therese laughs lightly; the flutter of breath tickles Ida’s bare neck. She is pretty sure it leaves goosebumps. “I suppose I was right to a point. But I wasn’t very worldly then, I confused love and marriage. The latter might have little to do with the heart.”

“Legal technicalities,” Ida agrees with a smile. “Although I’d marry you if I could.”

For a moment everything simply stops. Therese holds her breath for so long Ida almost worries her tuberculosis is back. Neither of them blinks. There is no sound except for the male soprano’s voice. It sings of transformation and of promise: “ _Leise Bewegung bebt in der Luft, Reizende Regung, Schläfernder Duft._ ”

When motion finally returns, every part of Therese becomes alive at once. She draws her head back a little, but her fingers, flat against the small of Ida’s back, pull Ida closer. She frowns, smirks and blows a stray curl away from her face. Apparently she hasn’t cut her hair, merely tugged it under the bowler hat. “You _do_ realise I’m still a woman under these clothes, right?” she says, one eyebrow cocked in a way that even Ida cannot misinterpret: Therese is _flirting_.

“Of course, I’ve seen you without any,” Ida replies without missing a beat, before she shyly adds. “You’re beautiful either way.”

The soprano has reached the end of his tale ( _“Saget seit gestern wie mir geschah, liebliche Schwestern; Liebchen ist da!”_ ), and Ida too is reaching a conclusion that has taken her years to get to. But now she is here; finally. “I know you, Therese. But more importantly, I know myself at this point. I know what my head wants, as well as my heart, and for once they are in agreement. So I’m asking this on behalf of both: Can I kiss you?” She touches Therese’s cheek, and Therese’s eyes flutter as she leans in to the caress. Therese’s body is responding _yes_ even before the word leaves her mouth and Ida is already there, catching it with hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Magnus Hirschfeld really did have a clinic in Berlin this early! And he did issue a pamphlet in 1898! I couldn't find the name or description of an actual gay establishment from this early, however, but surely there were some, and this is how I imagine one might have been.
> 
> I hope Ida and Therese don't seem too AU in this chapter. Ten years have passed at this point in the story, so to me it seems likely they have both changed and grown.


	6. Epilogue: Night

Ida has seen naked bodies before, of course, but never like this. As a doctor, everything is about detachment. Her gaze is honed in on anomalies, on the distinction between herself and her patient, the distinction between the body and the person inhabiting in. Looking at Therese is about eradicating distinctions; between friend and lover, between her ideas and her actual experience of the erotic. She feels herself falling into Therese metaphorically and literally as they tumble onto Therese’s bed. It’s clumsy; Ida lands partially off the side of the mattress, but that only makes them laugh together. Underneath the lightness they are both serious, Ida knows, but she is stricken by how easily the two sensations can coexist between them. She has never had this with anyone else. She thinks she will never want to. She has made her choice.

Yet she still doesn’t quite know how to follow up on that choice and feels an embarrassed flush rise in her cheeks. She hides it under the curtain of Therese’s hair.

“Is everything alright?” Therese, attentive as always, asks.

Ida nods against her neck and feels Therese shiver. “Yes,” she says, but she can hear the insecurity in her own voice. Therese gently pulls back, enough to gauge her expression. Ida has nowhere to hide and no reason to, really. “It’s just…” she bites her lip and thinks back to a conversation they had a decade ago. “Who wants a poor, impertinent old maid?” Back then Therese had laughed at her and pointed out that Ida was only 18 and far from old. But even if the memory is funny and she succeeds in making Therese smile, there’s a grain of truth to it now. Ida  _is_ old and in this particular area very, very inexperienced.

“I do,” Therese says simply, and it should be enough. Except it doesn’t quite quell Ida’s growing anxiety. She wants… this. But on a practical level she has absolutely no idea what to do. Therese is watching her patiently, holding her with one arm while stroking her hair with the other.

Ida wills herself to open up. “I have never shared a bed with anyone.” Again, she feels heat rise in her cheeks.

Therese continues caressing her hair. And her jaw. It ought to be soothing, but it is as if Therese’s fingers set Ida on edge in an unfamiliar way. Make her feel restless. “You were the first person I kissed,” Therese says. “I had no idea what I was doing. But I think I did it right.” She narrows her eyes. “Well, perhaps except for the fleeing-without-a-word part.”

A laughter pushes its way past Ida’s lips, and once again she is thrown by how easily they navigate different moods together. “True. But you know me, I prefer learning things the medical way: See one, do one, teach one. Or preferably, read about everything first. But I’m afraid my books fail me in this instance.”

Therese stretches next to Ida, makes herself comfortable as if they have all the time in the world. Perhaps they do. “I wish I had the book for you, but I’m not sure it’s been written yet.” She looks pensive. “I could tell you what I know. Would that help? I’m really not that much of an expert though,” she quickly adds, rather unnecessarily. Ida doesn’t care how many women Therese has bedded before her; she is worrying about the difference between _some_ and absolutely _none_. That, however, does not mean she wants Therese to relay each and every one of her intimate experiences.

“Maybe… Could you just tell me what it is you’d like us to do?” she wonders.

Therese nods slowly. Then she wiggles a little closer, holds Ida loosely with one arm while sharing her pillow. “I was thinking I might kiss you some more. Your lips of course, but also your neck. And your shoulders. The dip between your collarbones.” Therese’s lips are so close to Ida’s ear it almost feels as if they kiss her with every word. She shivers, easily able to imagine them kissing other parts of her skin.

“Then I’d like to touch you,” Therese continues, and whether conscious of it or not the hand curved around Ida’s waist begins to draw circular patterns on her side. Slowly and affectionately, but also in a way that tickles and makes the feeling from earlier return to Ida; the one she can only describe as a form of restlessness. “I would touch you everywhere- everywhere you’d let me,” Therese clarifies. Ida knows this. She knows Therese would never do anything Ida didn’t want. Would never even want anything Ida didn’t want. Unlike the few men Ida has considered as romantic partners (what feels like a lifetime ago) Therese has never tried to change Ida in any way, has always been attentive to her boundaries and wishes. Right now, however, Ida senses those boundaries are retreating. She is not sure there is any part of her she wouldn’t want Therese to touch. However, she’d still like Therese to elaborate. For the sake of knowing, of course, but Ida has to admit Therese’s words are enjoyable in and of themselves. They feel like phantom caresses of every part she names.

“I would like to put my mouth on you,” Therese says, “On your stomach. And your breasts,” she says, and it’s the most explicit thing anyone has ever said to Ida. She would have expected shame, but all she feels is the growing restlessness, which she now recognizes as a need to actually experience what Therese is merely describing with words. “I would touch my tongue to your thighs, and, if you liked it, in between them,” Therese says, and Ida decides she is done with theory. She rolls over, rolls them both over until she is pinning Therese beneath her in a way that assures as much skin on skin contact as possible. Therese is so very warm and her eyes are twinkling up at her: “That’s just what I’d like to do, though. The important thing is what you want. It’s your choice.”

And Ida laughs at Therese’s phrasing, because for once, she is not going to make a choice. She doesn’t have to. “I want it all,” she tells Therese. Fortunately, it’s what they both want.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that night, they were not divided.


End file.
